


An invisible man, sleeping in your bed

by Catharrington



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Gratuitous Smut, M/M, Neil Hargrove Being an Asshole, Porn with Feelings, Reincarnation, Rimming, Slow Burn, billy Hargrove is a cat dad, but it’s in the form of a haunting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:36:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27285031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catharrington/pseuds/Catharrington
Summary: Billy’s got to grow up, move on, experience the world other than his dad’s fists and the cold, copper after taste of abandonment. He’s got to get his heart broken to find out how it’s really shaped.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 14
Kudos: 60
Collections: Haunted Harringrove





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Billy wasn’t himself lately, he felt a tired ache down in his bones that wouldn’t shake away. In everything he did, grocery shopping, jogging in the sunny California afternoons, standing behind the counter at work, every single fucking thing he felt tired. 

As if he was a corpse going through the motions of his old life. As if he were a zombie shambling down the road and getting his gore all over the steering wheel of his Camaro. 

His father’s words ringing around in his ears like bats fluttering in a cave. Threats about growing up, becoming a man, growing a family of his own. Billy scoffed at that idea at the time and he scoffs at it now. A family of his own, for what- to control them? To force them under his rules with an iron grasp and cruel voice? 

Billy didn’t want any of that. Didn’t want to be his father. 

He took pride that he looked nothing like his father. Billy’s skin was tanned from the sun. He had friends— he smiled with his friends when he was out at the white sands and rolling waves of California’s beaches. He held down a job that wasn’t big or flashy or paid much like his father’s did. No, Billy worked at a quaint shop on the beach that sold towels and swimsuits all hand sewn by the owner. 

She was an eccentric old lady, ruddy in the cheeks and wore her long black hair tied up in a bun on top her head. Always smiling as if she knows something you dont. 

When Billy first came into the shop looking for work she was struggling elbow deep in a generator trying to get the thing to work. Billy slipped off his denim jacket and got his hands covered in oil, just like hers, so when they shook on his agreement to a job their hands where equally dirty. 

Billy hadn’t known what it was like to have a grandmother. He supposed she was the closest thing. Called her Gran when he wasn’t talking to her face. But he kept her at arms length. Kept her inside her quaint little shop with the bending roof and hot pink paint flaking off in the California sun.  
Because for as long as Billy had known it was just him and Neil. His father. 

His mother, with her long blond curls and flowing sundresses, had left while he was still young enough to block out her painful memory. 

And he didn’t blame her, not anymore. He spent a long time in anger. Letting his rage cloud his mind and bruised his knuckles. Letting Neil get what he wanted. Acted just the way Neil described him. Went through his high school the monster Neil said he was. 

But Billy isn’t that way anymore. He has good things in his life he doesn’t want to abuse or loose. His job, the woman who treats him like a grandson, and a stack of money in a shoe box just waiting. Waiting until he finally cracked. And grew up. Became a man. 

“You’re thinking so loud,” a voice interrupted. Billy turned over his shoulder to see Heather, more so her candy red lips turned up in a smirk. “What’s got your curly head in a knot?” 

Billy snorted. Rolled his eyes to keep them on the road ahead. “Nothing,” he lied. 

“Sure,” Heather could pick up on his moods up like she picks her lipstick in the morning. She’s always been able to read him so easily, it’s one of the main reasons they stick together. Why they became friends. Because before he even knew it himself, she could tell he didn’t have any interest in her ruby-red feminine temptations. 

“Well, if you care to tune back into the radio station of my love life; Robin sent me more photos of her cute home town!” Heather’s nails clicked across her screen as she flicked photo to photo. 

Billy feels badly he hadn’t heard her talking. He knows Robin is this long distance girlfriend Heather is trying to make work. Though, he doesn’t understand why. They’ve never been short partners in the rainbow colored bars they visit. A warm body for cold sheets, Billy only ever seemed to need that. Didn’t really feel the need to talk as much as Heather and Robin seem to. He especially wasn’t interested in looking over her shoulder at the photos of that little small town. 

“She send you any photos of her tits yet? I’ll see those-,”

“Get bent!” Heather snapped. Her mouth staying open like an angry duck bill as she glared him down. “Like hell she sent me any of those and like hell I'm going to show you, asshole!” 

Billy rolled his head back on his shoulders and let out a moan of disappointment. Heather pushes her elbow into his arm, and they both laugh. 

She was one of the good things in Billy’s life. One of the things he had to roll over in his mind very seriously when he graduated. Made a list of the reasons he was going to change who he was, who he had become under Neil’s roof. 

Billy went to a group circle one time. He didn’t talk, of course, not much to talk about other than the straight forward ‘my dad gets too angry and I’m just like my old man‘. But he overheard some words that stuck with him, helped him when he tried to sort out the crossroads he was coming up on. 

_Breaking the cycle of abuse._

He had left that group session with a little pamphlet he snagged from the food table, as well as a chocolate doughnut. Kept it in his glove box and mulled it over and over in his head. Pulled it out and just swiped his hands along the print. Tried to get the strength to reach out and claim the words as his own. Make them real. 

_Break his cycle of abuse._

“I’m serious, Billy,” Heather’s voice was gentle as she interrupted him this time. “What are you thinking about?”

Billy pulled off into the driveway of her house. Pushed the Camaro into park and felt the car as it idled under him. Felt the power of it under his fingers. He twisted his tongue in his mouth before replying. 

“Thinking of growing up. Thinking of—,” he jabbed his tongue into his molars. Felt like he shouldn’t say the next words. But he pushed them out. “Of moving away from the house.” 

Heather pursed her lips. For once the whole car ride she looked as if she didn’t have anything to say. But her eyes were speaking lots, swimming wide with worry and a sparkle of pride. Billy flicked his eyes away from hers, didn’t look too long. 

She said nothing to him, didn’t have to. She simply leaned across the center console and gripped his chin. Her fingers soft on the scratch of his 5’oclock shadow. She pulled his chin towards her until Billy felt a press of lips to his cheek. Gentle, soft, just for a few seconds before her hand dropped and Heather sat back in her seat. 

Billy felt her eyes on him. She wouldn’t leave until he turned one more time. 

So he did, turned with a powerful grin on his face like armor. She was smiling wide and real: one of the good things in his life. 

Then, she nodded her head once, sharply, and opened the door to climb out. Billy watched her walk up to her door and get inside before he backs up out of her driveway.


	2. Chapter 2

The Hargrove house wasn’t as gentle as Heather’s kiss was. What welcomed him as he stepped through the door was the hissing of television static, and the steady knocking of a boot against the table. 

Billy slipped the door closed, locking it quietly. He stepped through their narrow entryway into the living room. The couch was pushed up along one wall, Neil’s television was turned on right across from it. Long gone from any programming, now just white snow falling across the screen. 

Billy went to the television to turn it off. Plunging the living room into a darkness that felt blanketing. 

The house wasn’t furnished by much. There was a coffee table and maybe another table for the phone and loose car keys, but both were lost under a mess of empty beer cans. And take out food scattered about. And unopened mail. 

Neil’s boots were up crushing a pizza box. In his sleep he was trying to keep them balanced in a cross, making his heels buck against the wood in a steady rhythm. 

Billy was lucky to find Neil already passed out, but he couldn’t listen to the steady hitting sound that he knew would carry though the thin walls. So he reached out to hold his hand over Neil’s foot. Sat in the encompassing silence for a moment, before he lifted his foot out of the cross of Neil’s legs. 

Thats when the man snapped awake. Neil’s boots kicked out of Billy’s grip fast, as if he couldn’t stomach it. Billy supposed he couldn’t. 

“Hell you want, boy?” Neil slurred. 

“Cleaning up a bit, sorry,” Billy felt the lie fall from his mouth before he could catch it. “I’ll go to bed now-,”

Neil stood up from the couch. Even swaying with the motion he was still taller than Billy, still carried himself with a thick authority that choked him. Even now after all Billy’s grown he’s still cowering. 

Neil grabs a can left sitting on the coffee table and swigs it down. Crushes the empty can in his fist until it’s flat, let’s it drop to the floor with a clink. “Clean it up,” he slurs out. Pointing down at the can, his nose held up in the air. 

Billy is tired. He shakes his head, blinks his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Neil, as he gives in. Kneels down to reach for the can. 

His chin is caught by Neil’s heavy palm, grasping at the soft skin under his jaw before his neck. Lifting Billy to look upwards. 

“What’s this,” Neil had his eyes fixed on Billy’s cheek. Manhandling his head to see better. 

“Lipstick?” He asked even when the answer was obvious. 

Billy stood up quickly from the ground. Didn’t bother anymore with the beer can. It was crushed, trash on the floor. Billy took a a step away from it, wanted to distance himself from it. 

“It’s just from a friend-,” he tries, but cuts himself off with how pointless it all felt. 

Neil took a step closer. Looming taller than him, his eyes swimming in a drunken haze. “This friend wear red lips a lot? She that girl I see hanging on your car every where?” Neil lumbered forward. His words as loud as his footsteps. 

Billy felt the words form in his mouth. The comebacks of all the times he’s told Neil about Heather. How she isn’t ‘that girl’— how she’s the only friend from the entire two-story, thousand-plus graduating class of his high school who didn’t demand anything from him. Except for his happiness. And his safety. 

“That type of girl isn’t fit to marry, to call a wife!” Neil surged forward, his hands knocking away stacks of cardboard as he went. 

Backing up; Billy was happy he left his coat on and his boots laced. The brown leather was feeling sticky but now he knows he will be needing it. This house is the cycle and it’s spinning round and round again. 

“I’m not going to marry her— and she has a name! It’s Heather!” Billy balled his hands into fists but kept them tucked at his side. 

The words that came out didn’t come from fear or courage, more so they came from an exhaustion that was long overdue. “You’re barking up the wrong fucking tree if you seriously still think I’m getting married to a woman, old man,” Billy growled. 

Neil’s fists caught him, thick fingers wrapping and snatching his jacket lapels right out of the air. Fisting the leather and pulling it taught. Yanking Billy so he lifted to the tips of his toes. 

He let out a tired whimper, a beg for him to be left alone. Neil never listened to Billy, never cared what he begged for. 

“You better straighten up, ungrateful brat!” Neil walked Billy backwards towards the wall. Back into the small entrance hallway. His shoulder blades bit into the drywall painfully, as he desperately tried to pry Neil’s hands off the sides of his jacket. Neil took one hand off, not because Billy’s short desperate nails we’re doing anything, but so he could point a finger into Billy’s face. Pierced through his forehead like a needle pinning a bug under glass. 

Billy couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t breath with the weight of it all on his lungs. 

“You need to learn some respect for your father, boy. You hear me? Some respect for this family name—,“

“I’m moving out!” Billy screams back into his face. Neil’s beat red, sweating face, blurry with alcohol. Blurry as looked at from the rage burning inside Billy’s veins. Passed down by blood. He felt sick with it as it bubbled to the surface. As it pulled out the words he had been carefully cultivating for so, so long. They came out his mouth like red hot lava from the top of a volcano. Burning everything as they came. 

“I’m fucking leaving, old man! And I’m never gonna come back and bring you a fucking wife— or some little shit kids for you ever touch!” Billy’s words burnt as they came out his throat, but they felt so good melting away the claustrophobic air around his face. 

It felt good to watch his father go slack in the jaw and take a step backwards. 

“Get out,” Neil hissed the words. His voice coiled ready to strike. 

“If I ever get a family, if I ever love someone enough to call them family, I’m not even gonna let them know who the fuck you are!” Billy screamed. He wanted to close his eyes, the lava feeling more like tears as they come down his cheeks, but he couldn’t miss the anger on Neil’s face. 

The hatred there that was so damn familiar as Neil dragged Billy to the door and shoved him back out on the street.


	3. Chapter 3

It had started raining while Billy was inside his house, inside Neil’s house. Now the sun wasn’t setting it was gone. And it was dark. And it was raining. 

Billy stumbled down the street aimlessly. Not knowing where he was going. The Camaro was where he should tuck away to spend the night. Or should climb into and drive around. It felt too much somehow, the car he had struggled to buy with his own money. The car he sweet talked like a baby, and spent days folded under her hood making sure she ran like a dream no matter what. It was his safe space. 

Billy thinks if he got inside the cab during such a rainy night, right now, while he’s still burning hot with lava and turning everything he touches into fog: he would suffocate to death. 

So he walks, so limp he might as well be dragging one foot behind him like a zombie in the movies as he lumbers down the street. 

There’s a peace in the darkness, in the still of it. 

California is always a loud place. And usually Billy loves that about his state. He soaks up the attention of leering women, of cops driving by slowly, of children pointing at his one earring and their mothers hissing at them to stop. Billy would always throw his head back in laugher. 

Now, he feels hollow. Alone in the darkness. The rain pelting down loud onto the leather of his jacket. He wants to shiver and clutch himself tightly to fend off the cold, but he knows it’s useless. He’s soaked to the bone now. 

Wonders, for a second, if he’s going to get lost and die out in the black night. If he did just sit down and let the cold take him he wouldn’t be tired anymore. He could finally sleep. Neil would get what he wanted— Billy out of his hair for good. 

But Billy knows that’s out of the question. He can feel the words under his fingers of the pamphlet. From the circle of people all smiling from behind memories of their own cold, rainy nights. 

Maybe Billy needed this to get on their level. To open his scared mouth and talk for once about how life isn’t kind. It isn’t fair. And he doesn’t deserve this. 

Maybe the rain washes as it drowns. 

Just then, as Billy turned a corner and braced himself against a tilted metal sign post, he heard a whimpering. Something meek calling out from the thundering of the rain. 

Billy heard the noise and it perked his ears up out of the self-loathing stupor he was drowning in. Made him pull his head out his ass and look around. Another whimper, close this time. 

It sounded a little like how Billy did when he was begging to be let go. When Neil shoved him into the wall and hurt his back the way he had done many times before. 

That made a feeling come back to his feet the cold otherwise numbed away. He stepped closer to where the nose was coming from. 

There was a thicket of weeds at the end of a yard. A tight cluster of long grass and cat-tail weeds that hadn’t been mowed or cut. They grew up around the feet of a painted white wooden sign. Now gunmetal grey because it’s glossy with rain and dark from the night. Billy could see right at the foot, where one leg of the sign disappeared into the ground, the weeds were pushed away. 

A circle right in the middle of folded grass and broken stems. Small as the palm of Billy’s hand and dark as the sky dripping rain down on them. Billy reached out his hand, slowly with icy fingers, to dip them into the spot. His fingertips were almost numb, useless after shambling around for so long. But they felt what the instantly recognized as wet fur. 

It made a noise when Billy touched it. A pleading, whimpering, noise that was so tired. So exhausted from fighting to survive. Billy recognized it instantly. 

He curled his fingers around the ball of fur until he touched wet ground, then lifted. Another noise, this one louder than before. Maybe surprise, Billy thought. He brought his hand full of wet and dark fur to his chest, letting it feel what little warmth his heart had to give. 

“Hey,” he cooed in a way he’s never done before. No louder than the rain around him. 

It plastered his long hair around his face. He had to push it around before he could look down properly and see the kitten he was clutching to his chest.   
Just like that, as if the small animal could feel Billy’s eyes finally registering it, the kitten shifted in his hand. Uncurling itself from the ball it was tucked into, nose buried deep into its front paws folded so the didn’t freeze it’s nose solid, then looking up at Billy. 

The cat was black as the night sky. But it’s eyes— it’s eyes were milky white. Unseeing. 

“Hello?” Another voice broke into Billy’s thoughts. “Get out of here, now! Off my lawn, I mean! If you could— you!” 

Billy used his other hand to hold the kitten even closer to this body. He turned his head up sharply to see the person struggling with making a threat that didn’t have any bite at all. 

On the house’s porch stood a round man, a wooden bat clutched in his hands, and a determined look pinching his brows together. 

“Please get off my lawn,” the man kept going, his voice getting meek, “that signs been stolen three times and I really don’t wanna make another one?” 

Sure Billy believed him, the bat was a nice touch, but he was threatened with a scarier monsters that day. And didn’t have time for men pretending to be them. 

“Ain’t gonna steal your sign, bud,” Billy said cautiously as he lifted himself to full height. “Just picking up a little stray, and finding my self a little lost in the process.” 

The man searched Billy’s face. He might have found what he wanted in the blue tinted lips and dripping wet hair. In the way the mans eyes flicked down to Billy’s hands clutched at his chest and then back up. Because he let the bat drop limp in his hands. 

Billy took a step forward. He didn’t know why, he should be going back to the Camaro. Back to his own safe area that could be dry and warm, safe for him and the kitten holding tightly to his chest. But the yellow glow of the porch called to him. It felt almost right stumbling though the grass, sinking under his boots and leaving mud clinging to the bottom of his jeans, until he reached the bottom of the steps. 

Billy looked up at the house. It was impressive in its size, towering over his head now with its swooping white walls and pointed roof tips. There were vines crawling up the sides that swayed and moved in the rain. Like the house was alive. Billy is sure the joint would be some senator’s house a hundred years ago; now it kinda felt like Norman Bates’ house. 

There was a single flickering light on at the top most window. Candle light, maybe? His eyes followed it obediently, just for a moment, before he turned back to the porch.

“Billy Hargrove,” he supplied his name. 

The man nodded messed around nervously with the handle of his bat, before he replied, “Bob Newby,” with a smile. “Who’s that you got there?” 

Billy turned down to his chest. The kitten had uncurled and was cleaning itself, paws too big for its thin legs swiped repeatedly at its pointy ears. Pink tongue poking out the side of its mouth in concentration as it worked in vain to get the rain off its fur. 

“Yet to be determined,” Billy said through a grin, “we’ve just met, really. Gotta play my cards right to get that far.” 

Bob chuckled at that. A full bellied laugh that brought a warm feeling to the yellow light on Billy’s face. 

“You said you were lost, Billy? Did your car break down somewhere? I’m not a mechanic— but I can pull one up on a phone for you, if you want.” 

Billy shook his head. “Nah, I’ve got to get...,” the word ‘home’ caught in his throat. A wet sob he’s been keeping down for so, so long. 

Bob watched him gently, a frown turning down his lips. Like he knew Billy didn’t have a home to get back to. Like he could see right though the matted wet hair and thick, wet leather jacket right at all the bruises across his skin. The purple and blues and reds swirling together. Spiraling supernova hot. Burning itself out until only flickering embers remain. 

Billy turns away, looks back towards the wooden sign swaying in the rain. It’s a name, and a phone number, and the words apartment for rent painted in curvy red letters. Vacancy. 

“Are you sure? It’s not raining inside, ya’know. And I can make a pot of coffee. Open a can of tuna?” Bob talks gentle. Pleading Billy to come in out of the rain. 

Against his chest the cat purrs. Must finally be getting warm under the safety of Billy’s jacket. He shouldn’t get out walking and get wet again. If for the cat, Billy says to himself, he should be helping out this little cat. 

“How much for a room?” Billy snaps. 

Bob seems to start at that, not expecting it. But his smile actually widens. He laughs to himself, making his cheeks and belly rumble. Billy finds himself smiling back. 

“These aren’t the typical hours I do walk throughs for searching renters. However, I’ll make an exception! Let me show you my best room available, Billy,” Bob starts for the door, giddy on his feet, as if he’s already signed a lease. “We’ve just refurbished a bunch— and now I’m no great handy man, but I think it’s not too shabby a job.”

Billy pulled the kitten on his chest a little closer, pulled it it right up to the quick beating of his heart. Pulled his jacket over it’s butt and tail to keep it tucked. Then he followed Bob into the house.


	4. Chapter 4

The very next morning Billy was moved out of Neil’s house. He packed up his shit into a couple cardboard boxes and they all fit easily inside his back seat. It felt funny, in a heartbreaking way, just how quick he moved. As if he always could and the universe was just waiting on him to take the first step across the stepping stones. Once he did, stomach swooping, the rest fell into place. 

He named the cat Norman. Didn’t really have the mind for creative cat names. Bob showed him how to flip the cat over and check the sex. A boy, couldn’t be more than a year old by how small he was. His whole head and pointy black ears disappear into the cans of tuna Billy feeds him. When he’s face down like that it’s easy to forget he’s blind. 

The door shuffled before opening, the old golden knob sticking before giving way to Heather as she let herself in. Billy turned to view her from where he was laying on the bed. 

“I brought loads of stuff as soon as I heard!” Heather sang. Her arms were filled with brown shopping bags, and her voice muffled as she struggled to kick the door shut behind her. 

Billy laid back and let her struggle. “That I moved out? You got me some celebration booze in the bag?” He joked. 

“No,” Heather huffed as she dropped the bag onto Billy’s rickety dining table. Her painted nails dipped into the bag before yanking out a short scratching post. “You’re a cat dad!” 

Billy let his head heavily drop back flat on the bed. The mattress was old, lumpy, but it came with plush bedding he knew was expensive at some point. And the bed was large enough for his arms to spread dramatically. 

“Hope you didn’t buy any chasing toys,” he groans, “because the little blind mouse ain’t gonna be using those. Don’t think at least.” 

Heather stopped fussing with the bags. Pointing at him with a puzzled look before turning to the cat still eating at the foot off the stove. She tenetivitly stepped up to the cat, trying to be calm with the new animal, before petting her hand down his curved spine. 

Norman lifted his head from the bowl, turning his head too large for his little body left to right before settling on where he thinks Heather was kneeling. When she sees those white eyes blink towards her, she pulls her hands back to her chest and sucks in a breath. 

“He’s gorgeous,” she gasps. 

Billy knows. Solid black cat with milk white eyes, it’s not the best of omens to find in the middle of a rain storm. But Heather’s right, he’s a cat dad now. 

With a sigh, he lifts from the bed and goes to the window. 

His whole apartment is basically a renovated attic. With hitched ceilings and a huge center window right next to the bed. It runs from the ceiling to the floor, and it’s panel is covered with two layers of sheer white fabric. He pulls them back with a metallic hiss across the bar holding them up. Looks down at the street for a second before turning back to Heather. She’s still petting Norman. Talking to him in a sweet voice. 

Billy’s starting to feel more at home here then he’s ever had in a long, long time. 

Today he was able to get off work to move in. Even with it being short notice, Gran must have picked up on he urgency in his voice when he asked. She let him go on one condition: he stay later that Saturday. He happily agreed. 

Now, however, it felt a little much. To have a full day off to move his few boxes. The apartment, or rather open flat, was already furnished. Came with a bed and an empty set of drawers. A hideous floral couch pushed up against a glossy dark wood coffee table. The kitchen was a gas burning stove and a narrow metal fridge that was shorter than Billy was. The counters were all the same dark wood, stretching out father than there seemed room. 

Billy was a little excited to buy proper pots and pans and cutting board to cook for himself, not just for Neil’s approval. 

He really only moved into the place his clothing and stereo. He didn’t have a television or much in terms of kitchen items. 

So, sundown found him laid out on the couch with nothing more to do. 

Norman was curled under the long window by the bed, in a fluffy bed Heather somehow had shoved at the bottom of her bags. Billy had walked Heather out over an hour ago, down the steps that creaked with each footfall and into the clostophobic wooden pallels of the front entrance. Once just a simple home’s entryway, it was converted into a space for tenets to come in and out. A wall of metal mail boxes and a outdated buzzer system connected to a lock on the door. 

Half the place felt like modern things copy and pasted onto the old house. Made the walls seem strange and tighter around you as you went from the walkway up the steps. There was two other doors labeled with numbers Billy passed to get to his own. Bob told him they were empty. And promised Billy the renovated attic was the biggest unit. So, Billy obviously took that one. The rent was already so low, even affordable on Billy’s meger paycheck, why shouldn’t he.BEven after throwing down a stack for a months rent, Billy was able to bring back a plastic sack of food from the store earlier. His own food tucked away in his own kitchen cabinets. 

That brought a warmth to his chest. A kick of ego making his stomach tighten just a little. Flexing his abs under his shirt. 

Billy’s lips curled up into a smile. He reached down to tug at the hem of his cotton tshirt before yanking it off completely. Then he jimmied out of his shorts, tight and cotton, letting them drape off to one side while he ran his hands back up the inside of his thighs. 

In his own apartment, laying down on his own couch, the satisfaction of it kept circling his head as he laid comfortably across the cushions. Curly hair scrunched up at his shoulders as he laid back, relaxing under his own hands. Thick fingers curling around the shaft of his half hard dick while the other went down to cup his balls. 

A sigh escaped him. The idea of how he can be as loud as he wants was feverish, but Billy wanted to be quick. Wanted to be dirty, crude, as he jerked off for the first time in his own place. 

He snarled, gashing his teeth, before lifting his palm to hack a glob of spit. His cock slipped easily in his tight fist now, pumping faster than he had before. 

One leg lifted off the couch to spread further open. The other shoving his heel into the fabric hard, keeping his balance. His hand cupping around his balls squeezed playfully, meanly, pulling them up around the base of his shaft. 

Billy was already close, pent up to his neck in the want to cum. He growled low to himself, tucking his chin into his chest as he worked his arm until it burned. Picturing in his mind a pursed pair of boyish lips, flushed pink and dripping wet with saliva, begging desperately for Billy to finish between them. 

“Fuck,” Billy’s head jerked back as he came, “fuck!” Neck spasming as he struggled to catch his breath. He road out his orgasm by pumping his cock spent onto his stomach. 

There was a moment of silence, of clarity, as Billy laid back in post orgasm bliss. His eyes fluttering close to closed but not quite. 

From the window, he heard a soft purring. A reminder that he’s not alone in the room. 

Billy sits up on the couch. Turns to look over the shoulder at the window Norman’s bed sits under. And he doesn’t find the cat inside of it. Instead, Norman is moved closer to the end of Billy’s bed and sitting up and alert. His shimmering white eyes pointed sharply towards the window. 

Norman’s tail flicking across the floor was a sharp mirror to the white curtains fluttering. Billy watches the movement wide eyed, watches as Norman’s head twists and follows the movement as if he could see it. 

The curtain flutters about rapidly. Billy knits his eyebrows Together thinking he must have left the window open. But he hasn’t. The thick glass and white painted seal remain closed tightly to the wall. No gust of air, no rational explinataion for the movement. 

His breath catches and holds in his throat. His nails scratching against the back of his couch painfully.   
Then Norman’s ears flatten against his head and he turns around towards the breathless noise Billy is making. Blinks those wide eyes still too big for his small body, meows once as if he’s saying something obvious. 

The curtain stops moving just as Norman meows. Billy keeps his eyes on it, not breathing, but it doesn’t move again. 

He lays back down on the couch with an annoyed huff. Stretching his legs out and throwing his arms over his head. Damn old house with all its cracks letting the wind in. 

He wipes off his cum still sticky on his stomach with his rolled up shirt before slipping on a hoodie to sleep in. It might get cold in the middle of the night in the old house. 

Norman hears him climb up on the bed and follows right on his heels. Crawling towards Billy with his nose pressed into the sheets. When his nose bumps into Billy’s arm, the man scoops him up with a big palm and lays him down on his chest. Norman purrs loudly as he curls around himself. Makes home on Billy’s chest. 

His sleepy purrs help greatly in steadying Billy’s heart still pent up even after cumming, his eyes lingering on the curtains by the foot of his bed before he drifts out to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Billy’s head stays in a cloud. Even when he wakes up alone in bed, Norman moved off to curl up on top of the old, lumpy feather pillow Billy had pushed aside for his cotton one the instant he moved in. He couldn’t shake the feeling of cloudiness around the apartment. 

The cat purred away in its sleep. Didn’t even move as Billy got off the bed and padded into the kitchen. 

He made a breakfast that lifted the mood, felt like celebrating for the new apartment in a small way at least. He broke into most of the packages he got yesterday, bacon and sausage and eggs. Even laid out a couple slices of bread in the stove to make toast, making a mental note of having to buy a toaster. 

Norman stretched out across the pillow, arching his back in a perfect half crescent as he lifted off the bed. Pink nose stuck up in the air as he searched around. Then with a soft jump down and a wobbly padding towards the kitchen, he meowed up at Billy’s legs. 

“Smell that bacon?” Billy laughs out, rough with his tired voice. 

Norman meows again, his long black tail swishing behind him. He’s looking slightly closer towards the stove than Billy is actually standing, just a guess by his noise and smell where he might be. 

Billy remembered then how pointed Norman was towards the curtains last night. He isn’t like that, typically, when waking around. Head always hanging slightly off kilter because he can’t truly see. 

But when that curtain moved it was as if he could see the wind that did it. Or that hand that did it. 

Billy’s thoughts get interrupted by a pop in the pan. Bacon turning crispy brown on one side while the sausage links rolled around glossy with grease. He flicked off the fire and lifted the pan away. Decided with another dry laugh while eating to break off a piece of his long bacon strips and crumble it onto a plate for Norman. The morning tuna can be damned, Billy realized, as the cat almost jumped onto the plate with his eagerness to try cooked bacon. 

The morning was nice, quiet but nice. Billy realized with a sad clarity that it felt nice not having to worry about watching his back. Or worry about hogging the bathroom, or taking too long cooking breakfast he gets punched in the middle of his shoulder blades for it. Didn’t have to watch the floor so he wouldn’t step on Neil’s toes— now he watches the floor because he doesn’t want to step on Norman. And that’s so different. He cares about the cat, felt a pang in his chest he hadn’t felt about anything when he picked him up. He thinks maybe it’s the most he felt his whole life, but that’s really sad to consider. He doesn’t liner too long on that. 

He finished breakfast, rinsed the couple dishes he used, then realized He should’ve been getting ready for work. Billy showered, filled his mouth with water and spit it back out, then stepped out in a cloud of steam. Scrunching his hair into a towel, he opened the door to the bathroom and collected his folded clothes from the dresser top. 

“Mrooow,” caught his attention. Billy turned around to see Norman playing by the bed. His round butt sticking up in the air while his front half was hidden under the bed skirt. 

“Mrow— mrow!” Norman kept yowling, his tail going wild. 

Billy scoffed out a laugh, sure that the cat was chasing dust bunnies. Or simply batting at the bed skirt itself and enjoying how it moves. 

Getting dressed and heading out to work, Billy didn’t even notice the other side of the bed, how the skirt was pulled back as if by itself. 

By the time Billy gets home, it’s raining again. Loud drops hammering against the metal of the Camaro. He tries hard to keep dry while he runs inside but he doesn’t quite make it unscathed. Even in the short distance to get inside the walkway, he’s rightly dripping wet. His denim jacket soaked through. 

It’s his own damn apartment, so he drops the jacket on the ground. 

Norman starts awake from his bed by the window. Billy feels slightly bad for the loud noise. Each time he drops a boot by the door Norman gives a little start as well. 

“Sorry buddy, it’s just me.” Billy spoke softly. “It’s sure coming down cats and dogs outside. Bet you can hear it, though, huh?” 

He started towards his bed and the dresser, wanting to take off his jeans now uncomfortable with their wetness, but only managed to undo his belt buckle before he changed his mind to bend down and pet across Norman’s back. The cat arched and purred into his touch. Billy smiled down at him, feeling his chest warm with the cat’s warm fur. 

The rain was puttering around as if they were outside. So loudly against the roof, and loud against the long window next to Norman’s bed. It felt comforting, being surrounded by the white noise. Let his head zone out. 

Billy almost didn’t hear the shuffling noise in the kitchen. Or the patter of heels as they clicked against the wooden floors. 

The noise came with the rain just as gentle and easy in the air. Billy stiffened up, his hand stilling in Norman’s fur, as he strained his ears to listen. 

Feet shuffling, then a clinking of dishes together.   
Billy lifted off the floor in a hurry, stomping forward to look into the curved area of his kitchen he can’t see from his bed. Things rolling around his his head like someone followed him from work or some raccoon burrowed it’s way in for food all stuck in his throat as he saw nothing. 

Well, not nothing. The kitchen was clean. All the dishes that Billy had left drying on a towel by the sink were set away neatly. One even hanging over the stove from metal hooks that were installed before Billy got there. That pan was swaying gently. As if it had just gotten placed. It’s rhythm matching the rain on the roof. 

Billy gulped. He didn’t remember setting them away. No, he damn well knew he had left them sit out. Unless someone came in while he was working, but then the pan wouldn’t be swinging. 

Another noise, this one so quiet Billy is sure he wouldn’t have heard it if he wasn’t hyper listening. 

He turned slowly back to the door. The old coat rack that came with the house, the same thick wood stained a gloomy dark brown color, swayed under the weight of his denim jacket. It was wet. Dripping onto the floors in steady, fat drops. 

Billy suddenly felt very exposed. With his jeans undone and his belt hanging loose on either side of his hips. Standing in the middle of his kitchen in the middle of his apartment. 

Very much less alone than he thought he was. 

He dropped his pants the rest of the way. Slipped out of his clingy cotton shirt, holding onto each curve of his muscles as he flexed to pull the wet fabric away, because suddenly he was cold. Freezing, goosebumps spreading over the backs of his feet up to his throat. 

He threw his clothes in a wet pile at the coat rack. Sending it clanking down to the ground in a loud crash. He balled his fists at his sides as he stormed into the bathroom. Slamming the door behind him and turning the spray of water up as hot as he can get it. 

Billy adamantly ignores the room around him as he comes out of the bathroom. He stomps headfirst like a ram into his bed. Dropping the towel he had around his hips and burrowing naked into the sheets. His blanket isn’t thick, but it’s warmer than he had been standing in the hall feeling the gust of wind blowing around him. The gust of someone in his apartment. A ghost leaving pockets of chilled air where it went. 

Billy snorts. Just perfect. Exactly what he was searching for. When he pushed Neil away from him and went out into the night he thought he was getting away, moving to be free. Finally coming up for air out of the ocean he was drowning in since the day he was born to a monster as a father. A boogeymen haunting his every step, following him and breathing down his neck. Making him grind his teeth down wondering when he was going to get punched. It forced him to adopt the armor of attack first— before anyone can get their claws into him. 

Now it seems he simply traded his boogeyman for another one. 

Billy scrubbed at his face with his pillow. Willing away tears that threaten to fall. He didn’t look out from his bed once until the sun was coming through the linen.


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m not sick,” Billy has to explain for the second time that day, this time to Heather who is walking along next to him. Insisted on visiting during her lunch break at her own job, now she’s insisting on pressing the back of her hand on Billy’s forehead to feel his temperature. 

“You don’t feel sick, but you’re white as a sheet, Hargrove. What he hell?” She chided him. Pursuing her lips together. She looked like a mom, and Billy didn’t like the attention. 

“It’s nothing,” he groans. 

“This isn’t nothing, what’s going on? Is Norman being too difficult? Did he chew a wire or poop on your favorite shirt or something? He’s just a kitten, you know-,”

“No,” Billy snapped to interrupt her.   
Sure, he didn’t want to snap, but he couldn’t listen to Heather rambling when she’s worried. 

Billy’s mind was other places, eons away from the beach he strolled down on his break. The sand was soft under foot, warm on his skin, and he had a line of sweat rolling down his back under his cotton work shirt. 

But his mind was back at the creaking Victorian manor. Renovated into apartments he was so, so lucky to get. And the way he hasn’t been sleeping well in his nice, new bed. 

“Norman’s the best cat. I just. I haven’t been sleeping.” He told the half truth just to get her off his back. 

Heather was still worrying her lower lip, obviously untrusting, but nodded towards him. Even offering a light smile as she did. “Take another day off, maybe? I’m sure Gran will understand?” 

Billy stopped walking, his toes wiggling as he looked down at them. “I’ve already got off to move on Monday, and tomorrow’s the weekend. Gonna be too busy.” 

He turned his head up and down the beach, watching the people so he doesn’t have to see Heather’s sad expression of pitty. He steadied his jaw and headed back towards the gift shop shack and Gran. 

Getting home that afternoon felt later than usual, Billy trudged up the steps to his room as if trudging through shin high snow. It was 5 in the afternoon, the sun just starting to set but still hot enough to cook freckles across his nose. Inside the house, however, the sun seems to get trapped. Along all the old wood and the thick old curtains. Curling designs of leaves, flowers, thick vines that looked like bones, it all seemed to catch the light before it warmed the inside of the house. 

Billy had always lived under the sun. Entertained the idea of being a beach bum who lived in a Volkswagen van, if he didn’t love his Camaro so much he would have seriously considered it. Without the sun, Billy felt shriveled up. 

He pushed his key into the knob and turned the ancient golden thing, swinging the door open, and stopped. 

Across from the doorway, close to where the door to the bathroom stands open, Norman is batting his paws in the air. He jumps, bats and then lowers, only to lift back up to his hind legs and bat his paws again. Billy doesn’t know what to make of it. The toys Heather had gotten remained untouched on the diner table for a few days. 

Then, Billy squinted his eyes. He could just faintly see the outline of a curved white feather floating up and down. Staying just out of Norman’s reach to taunt the cat into jumping up after it. But how’d the hell did a feather get trapped in wind— and could blind cats chase feathers?

The window was bright, the sheer curtains doing nothing to filter the yellow light of the setting sun pouring in directly to the floor. Directly where Norman was playing. Billy almost didn’t notice, almost didn’t want to, but he was able to pick out a shape knelt down in the sunlight. 

Long legs folded up under a gently slumped body. Back broad but arched to curl over the small cat. A head of fluffy hair that bounced each time Norman bounced, pulling the feather that’s between his hands up and out of the cat’s reach. 

His hands. Billy realizes with a start, with a blush growing across his cheeks, as he finds a pretty smiling face in the barely there outline, that this is a man. Around Billy’s age, if he would guess. And his smiling down at Norman hard enough to make his eyes crinkle, his cheeks folded around straight teeth. 

He’s pretty. His ghost is breathtakingly pretty in the sunlight. 

Billy sucks in a sharp breath between his clenched teeth. He jerks the door closed again with a knock, then opens it back up. 

Norman is turned towards the door. His head slightly turned as he only looks to the sound and doesn’t actually see Billy enter the room. The figure in the light is gone. As if it weren’t there.

A part of Billy wants to blink it away. Pretend for a second that the figure wasn’t there at all. But he can’t. There’s a white feather laying out on the floor lonely in a rectangle of sunlight. 

“Hey, buddy.” Billy says his greeting. He doesn’t know if he needs to let Norman know that it is him coming home and not some stranger who also wears boots while working on a sandy beach, but it’s becoming a quick routine. 

He steps up to Norman, giving the cat a few quick scratches behind his ears before lifting him with one hand. Cradling the kitten softly to his chest. He holds him there, not very different from how he held him that rainy night. It felt so long ago now. But it hasn’t even been a week. 

“You’ve been seeing some shit?” Billy asks out loud. Doesn’t know if he’s talking to the cat or to himself. Thankfully, Norman looks up at him so he can convince himself he’s talking to the cat. 

“You’ve got a real pretty friend there. Spooky as shit. But damn,” Billy breaths out. 

The air is fresh where the outline was. He’s a toe away from the feather still laying on the floor. Everything smells clean, like honey and wheat, fresh linens hung out in the sun to dry, now they’re just begging to be dirtied. Billy knows that’s not his smell. He smells like sweat, ocean salt and the expensive cologne he drenches himself in once in a blue moon. 

Billy takes a deep breath. Holds it, then burrows his nose into Norman’s fluffy ears. The cat meows at him as if he is annoyed by the manhandling. But his purring against Billy’s chest says other wise. 

“You gonna introduce me to him sometime, buddy?” Billy asks. Feels his heart give a flutter. Doesn’t quite know if it’s fear or excitement. 

He takes Norman to the bed and dumps him while he starts to get dressed out of his work clothes. Thinks, it could be a little bit of both.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s become a routine, of sorts, this haunting of the apartment and of Norman. But not necessarily of Billy.

The fear he felt dissipates fully to a morbid curiosity. For the next couple days he doesn’t get any closer to his ghost. There’s still a second set of feet shuffling about, as if someone was puttering behind him, and things kept getting moved. Chairs pushed into the dinner table when Billy knows he left it halfway across the kitchen. The TV being flicked off when he wakes up after taking a nap in front of it. As if someone was cleaning up after him.

Mostly, Norman’s toys were moving around the apartment without the cat ever having played with them himself. Without him ever seeing them.

And yes, Billy’s started calling him: his ghost. Feeling a soft possessiveness over the pretty boy that floated around his area unseen.

It was strange. Billy found himself enjoying the company, if he’s going to be totally honest with himself. The idea of having his own place was nice but he’s never been a solidarity creature. He enjoys preening for people, he enjoys talking and laughing and getting people to smile.

He remembers his ghost, sitting in that patch of sunlight, with the biggest smile on his pretty face. Billy has never seen a boy like him. And that’s not for not looking.

When he lived with Neil he only ever had the option of looking, never touching, but only his hand and his imagination. He always lingered on the pretty ones. The ones he knew Neil would call a slur, an abomination. A useless pillow bitter.

Billy couldn’t take his eyes away, though, from the pretty boys.

They gripped him down in his gut and stirred what he knew he should be feeling for girls. What his friends growing up would describe as they blushed when their crush walked by. What they joked about when they stole a Hustler magazine and shared it in a circle in the shade of a dock. Billy lied about it then, agreed the woman made his stomach knot. Made his cock jump.

But Billy’s truthful with himself in a way he isn’t with others. He knew the very first time he saw a long haired, lean boy walking with tight fitting trunks cupping his perfect ass and a surfboard tucked under his arm, Billy liked the pretty ones.

And his ghost, with that smile that folded his cheeks over and brought wrinkles up into his eyes. He had never seen a boy smile like that, have such a genuine smile that even wrinkled his nose, and his ghost was doing that while dead. The image burnt into the back of his eyes like a photograph’s flash bulb.

Billy laid in bed Saturday morning and took a little more time for himself.

He reached down in to the bed sheets and jerked off thinking of long legs and pretty lips. Knelt down on the creaky wooden floors looking up at Billy with a ruddy blush on his face. Those long fingers reaching up to wrap around his cock and pumping it for him, perfectly slow. Smile never faltering even as Billy comes in messy streaks across those pink lips.

He cleaned himself up slowly, already tired and wishing he could stay in bed. But he had promised he would work extra hard Saturday for the privilege of getting that earlier day off to move. So he splashed water on his face and slipped on his work shirt.

Crouching on the ground, he poked at Norman still lounging in his bed. The cat stirred quietly before blinking those amazing eyes up at Billy. Slightly to the side, just in the direction his breathing must be coming from.

“Hey, buddy,” Billy whispered as he ran his hands over soft black fur. “I’m gonna be gone for a little longer than usual. Real sorry, but a mans gotta work. Gotta keep the tuna in that bowl?” Billy chuckled to himself.

Norman lifted his head to bump into Billy’s palm. His mouth opened in a quiet meow that showed off his sharp teeth. Billy curled just his finger tips under the cat’s chin and scratched there. Norman approved with another adorable meow.

“Shit, want me to take you into work? Just keep you in my pocket all day?” Billy asked.

Norman seemed to approve, standing up from the bed with a exaggerated stretch to get more of Billy’s hand across his fur.

“Nah,” Billy huffed, petting down Norman’s back twice as a goodbye before standing up himself. “Don’t want to take you away from our pretty ghost, huh? What would he do all day without a pesky cat to entertain?”

Norman yowls at him, as if he could reply. Seems to point Billy with a lopsided all-knowing look. Billy just shakes his head before heading towards the door.

Work that day seems to drag. As if the universe and this sprawling beach seems to know Billy’s only wish is to head home and jerk off in the spray of a hot shower to the memory of his ghost some more.

They get a group of a school trip all wanting their own hand tied dream catchers, making Billy sort out their whole stock from stinking cardboard boxes stuffed in the store room, and pass out nearly thirty different colored strings and feathers to the kids. They all ohh-ed and ahh-ed, traced their fingers over the knots. Billy explained to them how Gran has been weaving for years, how she could do it in her sleep. They all gasped like he was some magician doing a trick. He ain’t gonna lie, it felt nice. Then he had the long task of ringing them up.

After that, he had a woman run in with a broken bikini top and her hands clutching at her exposed chest. Billy, trying to keep his eyes as far up as they could go, and reminding himself he’s at work, offered her a free tshirt. But, she handed him a wet and crumpled bill for another swim top. He respectfully turned around in the shop to let her put it on. And when he turned around, she pat his cheek and told him to keep the change. That part wasn’t so bad.

Billy watches the clock tick past the time he typically turned the shop over to the owner. Gran is there, but she’s using him covering the register to work by herself in the back a little. She decided to try and build a home made kiln, and try her hand at pottery to sell in the shop. Billy considers it an accident waiting to happen. Just counting down the hours until she calls him back with a problem. Or a fire. She never does, thank God, and he closes the shop after dark without a hitch.

He leaves her elbow deep in clay with a wave. “Goodnight! And be careful with that weird oven, okay?”

Gran smiles. Her teeth yellow from smoking tobacco and other plants out hand-carved pipes. Waves her sticky hand around the air as if to brush off his words. “I’ve got it under control, Billy! You head home now, you’ve been a lot of help today. I’m so grateful for you.”

Billy rolled his eyes, heat creeping up his neck, “yeah, yeah, see you Monday!”

He rushed out the shop to the song of her laugher. Even mortified and embarrassed as he blushed like a tomato, he smiled wide the whole way home.

Over the streets. Up the sidewalk to the towering Victorian house, he felt like he was floating. Maybe he was still a little tired, and loopy, but it was mostly from the praise rattling around his head.

Billy wasn’t used to the kind words, the feeling of being needed. He had spent so long with a boot on his throat, and the constant reminder he was never even wanted in the first place, that he didn’t know how to take a compliment. It make his neck tickle, and his stomach flutter. It made him smile and run away, something he usually does the opposite of.

And it left him in a good mood. Even the darkness of the Saturday night couldn’t dampen it.

The house truly looked like a horror movie in the darkness, it’s walls blackened and the vines slithering like otherworldly tentacles. But up in the window, one he now can pinpoint as a window to his own apartment, had a flicker of candle light in it. Soft ember glow, warm orange rocking back and forth, did a good job of making him feel welcomed. Beckoned.

Even if he swore he didn’t leave a light on. Didn’t even own a candle to burn.

Billy took the steps two at a time, smiling as he slipped his key into the lock, and twisted the oval shaped knob to open.

He stepped in with every intention of heavily kicking off his boots and letting his jacket fall to the ground. A little game he kept up, how much could he mess up that the ghost would just clean.

Yet, when Billy turned around to greet Norman, his familiar endearment caught right in his throat. His eyes widened and threatened to bug out of his skull.

In the middle of his bed, the window fluttering around his feet to allow the moonlight to filter in as streaks of soft blues, laid his ghost.

Writhing around, his lean body fully displayed out across Billy’s sheets, he was a pretty sight indeed. One hand up to grasp at Billy’s pillow, bringing it’s corner to his face to cover his mouth. His eyes were closed and his lashes were beautiful against the cold ivory of his cheek bones. A blush darkened the color all the way down to his chest. The pale shaft of his throat was exposed by the ruffled collar of his open shirt, ghostly white and baggy, halfway hanging down one shoulder and only opening wider as he arched his back off the bed.

Billy noticed then, his ghost’s other hand was disappeared down under a pair of belly button high waisted pants. They had a tie-close to them that had to be laced up, old fashioned and unlike anything Billy’s seen. The laces where jumping with the way his ghost was moving his hand under the fabric.

Billy’s jaw dropped. His hands hanging uselessly limp to his sides as he watched, completely enamored and entrapped by catching his ghost jerking off in his bed.


	8. Chapter 8

Billy closes the door behind him as soft as he can, trying to not disturb the ghost in his bed. He steps into the doorway with shaky legs, trying to shuffle so his sandy boots don’t make too much noise. Dropping his jacket down to the crook of his elbows, before thinking second of letting the denim drop to the ground. 

On the bed his ghost keeps touching himself, twisting his legs up while his head thrashed to the side in a silent moan. Billy came closer, his breath shallow in his throat, close enough to be standing over the side of the bed. 

His cock filled out in his jeans so fast, quicker than any stolen porn or any magazine he’s ever swiped from a gas station. His ghost’s pretty throat held open in a silent moan, his pretty fingers wrapped around Billy’s pillow, his whole body quivering across the sheets with the jerking of his hand. 

Billy watches as his ghost’s white shirt slides farther and farther open, the frilly collar hanging loose around his sharp collar bones. With each pump of his fist in his pants. Both so creamy and white, both almost transparent against the wrinkled bed sheets. 

Billy sucks in a breath then reaches out. His calloused fingers worn and golden tan in contrast to the white seemed almost too dark, too wrong to touch. Still he tries. 

His hand only made it halfway before his ghost seemed to notice. Eyes that were furrowed under thick brows snap open, showing off eyes that were blown nearly completely black with lust. Glittering with unshed tears. 

“Hey,” Billy greets dumbly, his lips turnt up in a cocky smile. 

His ghost yanks his hand from his pants, the strings of the trousers still undone temptingly and Billy wishes he could see into them. Then his ghost lets go of the pillow to crawl backwards in his palms. 

Billy reaches out farther, fake smirk fading while his brows lifted to something more reassuring, but it was wrong. All Billy’s face knew to come off as was sleazy. “Hey, hey, wait—,” he tried. 

His ghost had reached the end of the mattress and curled his legs to gingerly step off the side. Backing away from Billy like a scared animal. Like something caught in trap. 

Billy didn't know what to do, what to say. How to let him know he wasn’t any old bastard, even when his pants were obviously tenting in a way that meant one thing. Even when his jacket was down around his elbows and his muscles bulged from his cotton tshirt. 

Even when he held his hands out in a surrender motion, in an I’m a good guy motion, the ghost didn’t seem to believe him. Billy couldn’t blame him, he didn’t know if he believed himself. 

Billy came around to the foot of the bed to meet where his ghost was going. Would cut him off if he tried to go into the open area of the flat apartment. 

And his ghost seemed to know, kept watching him with those amazingly enormous eyes still swimming with tears. He was crying, trying to hide it but it was obvious. 

Billy took a step closer, reaching a hand palm out. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he rambled. 

His ghost shivered, his whole body up to his fluffy hair and pretty eyes shaking as he listened to Billy's voice. 

Then he lunged in a sprint away from the bed. Billy took another step to reach for him, trying to catch him with a crooked arm, but all Billy’s hands feel into was white. 

His own sheer curtains tangled in his fingers where this ghost should be. Not the soft skin he had been gathering spit in his mouth thinking about, not the taught muscles quivering with exertion, no. Just gossamer fabric caught between his needy hands. 

“Shit,” he cursed. Throwing the curtains back to swing against the wall. They didn’t make a noise and that was unsatisfying. 

Billy spun around in his room. Still in his boots, still in his jacket, he felt like a damn idiot as he searched. 

The flat was empty. Just the darkness and a single panel of light coming in from the huge window to Billy’s back. The whole room cast in the night’s navy blue. Dust the only thing moving around the strips of light, sparkling in the current of the wind. Dots that only reminded Billy of the moles leading down the open shirt of his ghost. 

Billy groaned out loud to himself in his apartment. 

He ripped his jacket off his arms and reached down to scoop his boots from his feet. He gathered it all in a ball in his arms before he threw them back to the coat rack. There was a loud crash as the whole thing toppled overt with the weight. 

Billy yelled again, matching the noise. He was happy he didn’t have neighbors. Normans confused glare from the couch was enough judgment. 

Sucking in a harsh breath, Billy forced himself to start talking. “You ain’t gotta be afraid of me.” 

He felt like a madman, and he supposed he was. He turned around his flat a couple more times, socks patting softly against the floor, before deciding to keep his focus on the empty bed. 

“You ain’t, Jesus Christ— just listen. If you are even here. If you ain’t all in my head. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

Billy got no reply. He felt a little heavy at that. And the admittance that it all might be in his head. Wouldn’t that be great. Maybe he suffered too many head injuries from Neil he’s seeing shit. 

In a show of defeat, Billy sank into the mattress. Yanking his shirt off his head, then throwing that with a smack against the dresser front. 

“I know,” Billy said to himself mostly. Wishing his ghost was listening. “I know what cruel men... what monsters are like. I ain’t one of them.”

And Billy said it with so much heart, so much truth in each heavy word that he realized he believed it himself. He wasn’t Neil, his failure of a father. He wouldn’t be angry. 

At his feet, Norman moved from his bed to rub his skinny body across Billy’s legs. Meowing up at him with those big milk colored eyes that seemed to be made of mother of pearl, the same glossy rainbow shells Gran uses in her jewelry. Billy reached down to pick up Norman to cradle him close. He sunk his fingers in that soft black fur as far as they could go. 

Billy didn’t notice the bed dipping and the weight of someone sitting next to him until his ghost spoke. 

“He’s a very handsome gentleman, your cat is.” 

Billy’s head snapped to the side. He could see him, his ghost. And it wasn’t an accident or a mistake. He was choosing to be there there, visible. Sharp as a stained glass window, beautiful and transparent. But on the bed right next to Billy. 

When his ghost opened his mouth again, Billy followed the movement of his lips desperately. “The first one to see me in years. To not be lost in the veil between words, to have eyes on me— even a little cat’s, was most welcoming.”

Right next to him, close enough for Billy to feel the cold air on his lips, a his ghost blew out a laugh. 

“Norman,” Billy stumbled the words out. Felt like he ran headfirst into an iron lamp post. He struggled with the fat tongue in his mouth before trying again. “His name. He’s Norman Bates. Like the killer from the film ‘Psycho’.” 

His ghost giggled again softly. The smell of his breath was fresh herbs, spun golden honey. Billy realized instantly he has smelled that before. He couldn’t help but lean into the comforting smell. 

“That’s a morbid thing to name a cat as lovely as him. But no matter. Hello, Norman,” his ghost lifts his hand as if to pet across the cats curved spine, but he catches himself. Holding the semi-solid limb hovering like a cloud between them three. 

Holding his hand above Billy’s pants, that had been so strained with his hardened cock not that long ago. 

His skin looks so soft, so pale. Billy is sure it would feel like the marble statues in a museum. Wondered selfishly what it those fingers taste like. 

“My name’s Billy,” Billy choked out. He huffed a laugh afterward with a a little snarl, hoping to balance it into something cooler. More impressive for his ghost. 

“Billy Hargrove,” he dragged the words like he dragged his tongue over his lips. 

His ghost flushed a rose color. His shoulders tucking inward to make himself small. But Billy was looking, he noticed the way his ghosts pretty big eyes lingers from his wet lips before dropping down to Norman’s fur. 

“A pleasure, Mr. Hargrove,” he whispered. 

“Oh god— no,” Billy laughed, keeping his voice husky and low. “Don’t call me that. Sounds like my damn dad. Come on, sweetheart, it’s just Billy.”

His ghost flushed deeper, powdering that white skin in a blush as flagrant as peaches. Up his throat and across the high points of his sharp cheeks. Even the tip of his sharp nose. 

“You may call me Steven then, Billy, seeing as we are making a round of introductions.” He had a flighty turn up of his lips. A smirk that Billy just wanted to poke and make grow. He looked so good in every thing he allows Billy to see. 

“Really the pleasure’s all mine,” Billy holds his hand out in an offer for a shake. It’s a little greasy, he’s a little greasy. 

For a moment his ghost— Steven, keeps his hand hovering next to Billy’s as if he were going to accept the shake. 

But he pulls it away. Timidly lifts his palm to his chest left open by his unbuttoned shirt. The white fabric gathered gets pulled apart farther by his movement. Exposing more of that mouth-watering skin. Running his thin fingers up the shaft of his throat desperately, putting pressure against the skin as if he were trying to exhaust the grip he wanted to use on Billy’s hand. 

Billy follows the movement, his hips getting restless under him, shuffling about and making Norman meow in annoyance. Billy doesn’t care, he feels like he should but he can’t. 

All his life he’s been feeling like he should care, like he should hide the side of him that seeks the muscle of a man, the long legs and wide palms. A square jaw just like his ghost’s. Billy’s been told under the weight of a work boot to keep it down, keep it hidden. 

But he isn’t in Neil’s house, and he doesn’t have to hide. 

He licks across his lips again to get them wet for what he’s about to say. “What were you thinking of?” He asks. “When you were jerkin’ off in my bed?”

Steven’s breath catches in his throat. Still held in his pretty hands. His eyes flutter closed as he struggles to reply. “I apologize,” he whispers. “That was rude. I shouldn’t have—,”

“Don’t,” Billy growls. His voice makes his ghost blush again. It’s a power he’s growing addicted to. “Don’t change the subject. I liked it. The prettiest picture I could have come home to. And I want to know: what where you thinking of?”

Steven shivered again. He let his head fall back as his own hand tightened around his neck. 

“I had forgotten the pleasure of it, touching ones self. I watched you earlier bringing yourself to climax. Making a,” his breath hitched, “making a mess. I dare to say— I was thinking of that.”


End file.
